The surf was 2 foot and posed no problems. Michael Chiang was showing off his rolls and I heard someone say "Where 'd you learn that ?" (must have been Steve). Those rolls were pretty good. Later I heard that Michael didn't start paddling until October last year. He sure could have fooled me! I decided again that the water was too cold for my first ocean roll - not even wearing a T-shirt because the weather was going to be really nice.
There was a fair amount of chop as we paddled to Santa Barbara Point. I applied the corrective stroke that I learned last week when paddling with Patrick. I discovered that doing a J-stroke, with the curl of the J pointing to the stern all the way back, yields significant corrective action. It helped a lot with the little bit of weathercocking that we had. Pat had flipped his rudder down right away, he felt the weathercocking right away in his 19' CD Extreme.
I waited for the rest to catch up. Once they arrived, Steve started right away with excuses why they were so slow, namely by blaming me for being so fast. That's nice to hear of course but I wasn't even trying, only half of the power I need to keep up with George on a good day. I really think the backward thrust of their vocal chords is keeping them back. Especially Steve's voice, that's 2 knots easily. On we went to Hendry's, slugging our way through the kelp beds (at least I was). When I got there I noticed the others had taken the more adventurous route and were approaching in the surf zone.
Hendry's restaurant is a great place with a gorgeous view and great food, I would recommend it to anyone. But the service is slooow (which is OK, you shouldn't be in a hurry once you're there anyway) even at the takeout window where we got some drinks and snacks. After a half hour break we went on our way back. There's always an appreciative audience, one admirer told us she was thankful for seeing some real boats instead of all those SOTs all the time.
The group was spread out but still together by Santa Barbara Point. I saw Paul and Jake coming up from behind and waited for them. They had no intention of resting and moved on so I went on my way in Paul's wake. A sailboat was approaching us. It seemed to want to pass us on the left. Paul had continued paddling and responded by turning right. The two guys on the boat were in a heated debate and all of a sudden they turned - still at 10 knots or so, heading straight for Paul. I was less than 10 meters behind him and thought for sure that he was going to be run over. The guys started panicking and Paul stopped paddling - they missed him by only a hair.
Paul being Paul (I don't really know, this was the first time I met him), he paddled around, did a roll, and moved on without saying anything. If it were me, I would have yelled the living daylights out of them. Later on the radio I heard somebody else complaining to the Coast Guard about some boat acting as if they owned the channel. I wouldn't be surprised if it was those same guys.
Anyway... we paddled on. I had to stop for a boat being towed in by the harbor patrol. I arrived at Butterfly Beach at 12:55. Ten minutes later Paul, Tim and Jake arrived. Tim landed, Paul and Jake kept on playing in the surf while Tim and I started unloading our boats. The rest would have arrived 40 minutes later (if they were paddling but they also started rolling and playing). I had to go back and didn't watch them land. I should have practiced in the surf myself and get those rolls in.
Altogether a gorgeous day in a gorgeous place with a great group, and thankfully without what could have been a serious accident. Paul was wearing a helmet, good thing he didn't need it.
Henk
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I think Henk did a pretty good job of describing who paddled with us today and what conditions were like, so I won't go into many details other than to say today was an absolutely beautiful day with plenty of warm sunshine, clean water, and great company. Although we may have been paddling a little faster than we normally do, I regarded today as a social paddle because there were a lot of guys that I hadn't seen in a while and I enjoyed several good conversations with them as we paddled along.
I just want to share one little conversation that occurred on the way back to Butterfly beach. While the fast paddlers were heading for home, those of us at the back of the class were having a merry old time yucking it up. Our Old Fart humor may be a little crude, so if you a prude please quit reading this narrative and go do something more appropriate with your time.
Still here? Ok, I warned you. It all started innocently enough when Steve asked Mike if his feet were still falling asleep when he paddled long distances. When Mike replied that he was still having that problem, Steve said that he had a solution. Steve suggested putting a pad under his thighs to better support his legs, he could experiment by putting his paddle float bag in front of his seat and inflating it at a variety of pressures to see if it helped. Then Steve went on to suggest, "You also need to drill a hole in your bulkhead."
Mike: "Let me get this straight, I need a new A-hole. What's wrong with the one I've got?"
Steve: "You need a small hole, about 1/32" diameter to relieve the pressure in your."
Peter interrupted: "That's it, Mike, you definitely need a smaller A-hole."
Mike: "But won't the new A-hole leak? And what's this got to do with the pain in the balls of my feet?"
Peter: "Mike, after you have drilled a new A-hole, you stuff your paddle float into the hole and blow it up. Trust me, your A-hole won't leak and the pain in your balls won't matter any more."
These guys went through this little exchange with straight faces. But I cracked up so hard that they were afraid that I might capsize.
I think I may have said more than enough about our day on the water.